Avaya and Juniper take relationship to deeper level

Networking equipment heavyweights Avaya and Juniper have announced a deepening of their relationship with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU).

The MoU will see the two move closer in terms of joint development and market offerings, as well as allowing both companies to resell each other's products and deliver each other's service capabilities.

Facing an enterprise market overshadowed by the networking behemoth that is Cisco, Juniper and Avaya will be able to take advantage of each other's respective strengths.

Any converged offering will see Avaya hoping to gain opportunities from Juniper's security and routing offerings, while Juniper aims to benefit from Avaya's enterprise communications activities.

Michael Thurk, group VP for Avaya's enterprise communications division, said: "This relationship with Juniper fills an important role in our network offering."

Thurk added that customers are "excited" about deeper integration between the pair but declined to give more specifics of how the agreement will work.

"A fair bit of work has gone on between the two companies but we're holding back details on the joint development portion of the agreement," he added.

Lou D'Ambrosio, Avaya's group VP, said that while the two already have a long-standing relationship, the MoU "takes the relationship to a deeper level". More details about how the relationship will work are expected to be revealed in the next couple of months.

Ovum research director Peter Hall said the marriage could provide an opportunity for both Avaya and Juniper to take on Cisco.

"Reading between the lines, it sounds as if they [are] going to do something significant in joint development... Cisco is embedding IP telephony in its branch office solutions. Avaya want to move in that direction.

"Integrating telephony with routing is a smart move."